Year: 2003

It is a fairly safe bet the 160,000 men and women who deliver our letters will vote to walk out over pay this month in their own postal ballot. When the returned slips are counted on September 17, the result will pose a major headache for Royal Mail bosses and Patricia Hewitt who, as trade secretary, is custodian of the publicly owned service.

The picketing of sorting offices and the downing of bags would also confirm the return of the strike as a prominent feature of UK industrial relations. Official statistics recorded 1,323,000 working days spent on strike last year, the highest since 1990, as firefighters and local government staff lit the braziers. The total was more than double the 525,100 counted in 2001 and over twice an annual average of 496,000 in the previous decade.

Royal Mail is to use bigger aircraft to transport letters by air in cost-cutting plans which will affect up to 50 jobs, it was announced today.

The number of flights will be halved from the current 39 a night, while fewer airports will be used to handle mail.

But the changes will result in a million extra items of mail being transported by air every day – from 5.5 million to 6.5 million – the postal service said.

Post offices in isolated and disadvantaged communities in Wales are to receive almost GBP900,000 of funding.

The cash, to be shared by 21 post offices, is the second stage of a rescue fund announced last year which will see a total of GBP2.5m made available by 2005.